For many Olympic athletes, the dream begins as a child.

That's why a Vancouver woman has gone to some incredible lengths to instill the Olympic spirit in some of the smallest spectators.

Vancouver's Mary Ann Clark has gotten businesses to donate money to help buy Olympic mittens for school children. And Hudson's Bay is selling the mittens to Clark at a discount.

So far, she's outfitted 14,000 Vancouver students with mittens.

"Why don't we do something positive for these kids and get them really involved so they aren't just bystanders?" she said.

Clark distributed mittens this week to students at Lord Roberts Elementary School.

She said she hopes the children will be out in all their red-mitten glory when the torch passes through in a couple weeks.

"We have127 languages spoken in the school system so a lot of kids are grappling with what it means to be Canadian. If we can get them altogether, and put a Canadian symbol on their palm. it makes them feel included, and its a good sense of community," she said.

One dollar from each pair of mittens goes toward the inner-city hot lunch program.

To learn more about the Mitts for Kids campaign, click here.

With a report from CTV British Columbia's Leah Hendry